Arman Bohn releases Glass Armanica v1.0 beta

Arman Bohn has released version 1.0 beta of Glass Armanica, a sample based recreation of Benjamin Franklin’s rubbed glass instrument known as the Glass Harmonica, Armonium, Hydrocrystalophone, or Armonica.

Arman writes:

I originally planned to recreate all three octaves of the real instrument, but I ran out of sufficiently large wine glasses. If I come across any enormous goblets in the future I may release an enhanced version of the Glass Armanica.

The samples were created by filling wine glasses with water and tuning them with a chromatic tuner to the appropriate pitches (drop by drop). I used an Oktava MC-012 cardioid condenser microphone running into a Seventh Circle C84 Preamp.

Glass Armanica v1.0 beta features

A single octave octave of samples running from MIDI note 72 to 84 (Octave 6).

Amplitude ADSR controls.

Velocity sensitivity.

Reverb with width, size and mix controls.

Hi-Cut and Master Volume controls.

Glass Armanica is available as a freeware VST instrument for Windows PC.